Monday, December 31, 2007

Those Hurtful Christmas Wishes again

We read:

"In Central Florida, like so many other places in our politically correct nation, it's become upsetting to wish people a Merry Christmas. It hurts their feelings, and we wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. That's not the Christmas way.

An employee in my father's company was reprimanded for sending an email addressed to everyone in the office address book. The email not only contained the feeling-hurting "Merry Christmas" but a short Bible verse as well.

Apparently many feelings were in fact hurt by this insensitive email. How dare someone wish another person a Merry Christmas or use such profane language as "God" or "Baby Jesus."

So now "Merry Christmas" is out, and "Happy Holidays" is in. And so far, no one's feelings have been brutally disregarded or violently hurt. I know I'll sleep much sounder knowing that my ignorant wishes of happiness and joy to my fellow man will not be the cause of any intolerance or pain.

"Photos of USG [University Student Government, I assume] presidential candidate Josh Weinstein '09 wearing dark clothes and black face-paint caused a stir on campus over the weekend, after they were published by a blog last Thursday.

The captioned photos, which depict Halloween festivities, were posted by Weinstein on his personal website in the fall semester of his freshman year. An anonymous student apparently saved copies of the photos, which Weinstein later deleted from his site, and submitted them last week to IvyGate, which covers news from the Ivy League.

Along with the photos and captions, IvyGate ran a statement sent by Weinstein on Nov. 28. Though Weinstein stressed in his statement that he had no racist intentions, the IvyGate story caught the attention of minority groups on campus....

In the statement, Weinstein said the photos show him "dressed as a person's shadow. It was very clear, from the beginning, what my costume was about: imitating a person's shadow. As such, I followed around other party attendees, mimicking their actions."

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Freedom to report sporting events?

We read:

"Bloggers suffered a surprising loss last week when the NCAA issued a new "NCAA Blogging Policy" limiting how often bloggers can update their blogs while attending championship college events, reports CNET News's "Beyond Binary" blogger Ina Fried. Each sport has a different set of rules for how often a blogger can post during a single game. For example, bloggers at football games can update three times per quarter and once at halftime. But in basketball, bloggers get five posts per half, once at halftime and twice per overtime period. Even sports like water polo and bowling are regulated, Fried reports.

The exact rules of the ban are posted on the NCAA's website. The new policy has already sparked intense backlash on the blogosphere, but traditional media has been slow to pick the story up.

The new policy comes just months after a Courier-Journal blogger was booted from a baseball game between the University of Louisville and Oklahoma State in June. Staff blogger Brian Bennett was approached by NCAA officials in the fifth inning and told that blogging "from an NCAA championship event is against NCAA policies [and] we're revoking the [press] credential and need to ask you to leave the stadium."

The issue of First Amendment rights came up in the Courier-Journal case in June when the paper's attorney, Jon L. Fleischaker, argued that the facts of a game are not subject to copyright law. It's not clear whether the First Amendment will come into play in relation to the new blogging policy.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Immigrant-Rights Groups Try to Suppress Broadcast

The usual Leftist attempt to silence opposition rather than debate it:

"Immigrant-rights groups are criticizing the organizers of an upcoming radio event that will promote a crackdown on illegal immigration. The groups accuse the Federation for American Immigration Reform of endorsing bigotry and racism. FAIR is sponsoring a broadcast marathon for Thursday and Friday in a downtown Des Moines hotel. The event is expected to attract 22 radio talk show hosts from across the country to discuss immigration.

``We don't agree with their views that are demonizing immigrants, and we don't appreciate their coming to Iowa telling us what we should think about immigrants,'' said Alicia Claypool, chairwoman of the Iowa Civil Rights Commission.

Critics have said FAIR's hard anti-immigrant line has discouraged a fair debate.

The Center for New Community, a Chicago-based immigrant rights advocacy group, disagrees with FAIR's purpose and encourages the hotel to cancel the event....

Stein accused critics of the planned broadcasts of trying to obstruct free speech ``and people's right to be heard on public policy issues.''

"Australian cricket fans racially taunted Indian supporters at the MCG yesterday despite Cricket Australia's zero-tolerance policy. And police and security staff did not eject any fans despite the Australian supporters shouting "Show us your visas, show us your visas" at their Indian counterparts and being within metres of the potentially explosive incident.

Indian fans spoken to by the Herald Sun described the chant as "offensive, ugly and racist". One said the chant created "a potentially explosive situation". They were backed by Australian fans who said that those responsible should have been thrown out of the ground.

Up until the chant began, there had been good-natured banter between the two groups but the Indians' mood changed when the "visa" taunt started. More than 100 Indian supporters sat stony-faced and silent during the chant....

Insp Bob Hill said a police senior-sergeant was sent to the area to investigate the incident. "The Indian fans interviewed said they were not offended by the chant so there was no need for anyone to be ejected," Insp Hill said.

Friday, December 28, 2007

White Guys Have No Rights. And They'd Better Shut Up If Think They Have

The above title is a quote from someone who has just been subjected to a compulsory course on "sexual and other illegal workplace harassment". The title summarizes what she learned from the course. An excerpt:

"The message the employee is supposed to carry away is clear: Anyone who complains about any kind of inappropriate harassment or discrimination in the workplace must be treated with kid gloves (even if the complaint is silly), unless the complainant is a white guy concerned about "reverse" discrimination, in which case he's "really out of line" and his conduct is "really offensive."

It occurred to me that this training course is itself a rather blatant form of racial and sexual harassment. Employees taking the course are not so subtly being told, "Do not dream of complaining about race or sex discrimination if you are white or male. Your employer will consider you to be 'really out of line' and your conduct 'really offensive.' This may have an career shortening effect."

Go here to read it all. Some background and further comments here and here

In order to protect labor unions. This seems like a dangerous "thin end of the edge" to me:

"Labor unions and political protesters are protected by freedom of speech when they leaflet shoppers at malls in California and urge them to boycott stores, a sharply divided state Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The 4-3 decision was based on the court's landmark 1979 ruling that allowed political speech and activity at large shopping centers. In that ruling, which involved signature-gathering on political petitions at the PruneYard Shopping Center in Campbell, the court said a shopping mall was the modern equivalent of a town square or community meeting place, where people come to exchange ideas as well as spend money.

The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in 1976 that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects free speech only against restrictions imposed by the government and not by private property owners. But the 1979 ruling, based on independent rights under the California Constitution, remains the law in the state....

"Urging customers to boycott a store lies at the core of the right to free speech," said Justice Carlos Moreno in the majority opinion. He said the mall's rules were not aimed at preventing disruption but simply prohibited certain speech based on its content.

The dissenters, led by Justice Ming Chin, said the court should not only uphold the shopping center's ban on consumer boycotts but also overturn its 1979 ruling allowing peaceful political activity at shopping malls. "Private property should be treated as private property, not as a public free speech zone," said Chin

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Naughty Bob Kerrey

Must not mention Obama's apparent strengths:

"Senator Bob Kerrey, pretending that he was praising Obama, said he hoped Obama would play a role in a Clinton Administration by reaching out to Black youth and Muslims around the world. Kerrey added: "It's probably not something that appeals to him, but I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim," Kerrey, who is currently president of the New School in New York City, said. "There's a billion people on the planet that are Muslims, and I think that experience is a big deal."

As in the earlier case, Kerrey also issued an apology to Obama. Yet, in reading his comments, does anyone really believe this was not pre-meditated and malicious and in fact, racist by suggesting, in essence, that Obama is only sufficient in reaching out to Black youth and Muslims?

"Firefighters at the East Baltimore station where a noose was found demanded Monday that the NAACP apologize for labeling them racist. Discovery of the noose had drawn sharp criticism from Marvin "Doc" Cheatham, the Baltimore NAACP president, before a black firefighter from the station admitted that he had placed the noose there.

"The firefighters that work on his shift want Doc Cheatham to be man enough to stand up and apologize for his outrageous statements," said Bob Sledgeski, a city firefighter union official. "They're furious they were accused of being racists when it was not true."

The union, Sledgeski said, is considering filing a defamation lawsuit against the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Vulcan Blazers, a black firefighters group that said the noose symbolized racism in the department.

Henry Burris, president of the Vulcan Blazers, condemned the incident but said no apology was necessary. "I do not condone it," he said. "However, I do not apologize for the information I got concerning the noose, and, as I said when I found out about the noose, it was just a symptom of racism in the fire department."

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Take bets: Does Blackness Trump Good Words about Hitler?

I haven't seen any reactions to this yet so maybe that decides the bet:

"Will Smith has stunned the world by declaring that even Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was essentially a "good" person. The Men In Black star, 39, is determined to see the best in people, and is convinced the former German leader did not fully understand the extent of the pain and suffering his actions would cause during his time in power in the 1930s and '40s.

He says, "Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'Let me do the most evil thing I can do today'. "I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good'. Stuff like that just needs reprogramming."

Smith's comment does have an element of truth in it insofar as Hitler does seem to have genuinely believed that the Jews were the enemies of his beloved German Volk. But truth seems never to be a defence in these matters.

"An embarrassingly derogatory remark against Hindu women by a Canton Township, Detroit official has angered many among Hindu Americans, especially the Indian community in Detroit.

Catherine Johnson, a 71-year old planning commissioner in Canton Township has now offered to resign after she asked at a public forum whether Hindu women urinate in public as part of any Hindu religious ritual. Her shocking and grossly ignorant remark, she claimed, was prompted by neighbors around the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir (BAPS Temple) told her that during the Temple's groundbreaking ceremony in 2000, several women attending the ceremonies were seen urinating behind the Temple, and so wanted to know if it was some sort of ritual.

According to The Detroit News, Johnson, who has served as a member for 27 years on the panel, said she's quitting because Supervisor Thomas Yack asked her to -- not because she said anything wrong. "It was a valid question. It was something that a few citizens contacted me at home about," she said. "I try to ask questions about what citizens in the community would want to know." The appalled Indian community said the question was an unfair characterization of their culture and a lie, and said the remark underscored stereotypes about cleanliness in India.

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Homosexuality Trumps Blackness

Jamaican culture not acceptable in Britain:

"Brighton council's decision this week to prohibit concerts that incite racist or homophobic violence should be applauded. While no BNP-supporting boot-boy band would get a council licence anywhere, there has been more tolerance for Jamaican reggae stars such as Buju Banton and Sizzla, famous for those toe-tapping lyrics "Shot battybwoy, my big gun boom" about murdering gay men.

It is time to challenge the hierarchy of discrimination that puts the rights of racial minorities and religious groups high above those of women and gay rights. Too often culture or faith are cited as excuses for attitudes that would never be forgiven in, for example, white working-class men. According to Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, Jamaica has one of the most repressive attitudes to homosexuality in the world

I just wonder how the correctness police work out these priorities. So nice that we have such wise people making decisions for us dummies about what we hear. Sorta a pity if you like Jamaican music, though.

The author below says that the tyranny and brutality of the Islamists SHOULD be hated:

"Not all hate is improper. My hatred of the fascistic impulses of archaic shari'a law stems not from ignorance of "the other," but from knowledge. The more I learn, the more that is revealed, the stiffer my backbone becomes and the more I come to despise. This hatred is fine, as its converse would be immoral indifference.

Monday, December 24, 2007

It's not News Unless it's Reported by a Mainstream Journalist

The Leftist "Media Matters" is scandalized because Fox News reported an anti-Greenie story that was originally put on the net via a blog rather than by one of the mainstream news organizations. Fox was reporting -- HORROR -- that a group of 400 scientists have rejected the "consensus" view that the world is warming up. The scientific "consensus" on global warming has unravelled and we can't have that!

How pathetic they are. They couldn't question the truth of the story -- because it is true. The only thing to criticize that they could find was who reported the event. We must bow down to the Leftist media and let them tell us what to think, apparently. We are naughty children from whom some information must be kept hidden. They are in for a lot of disappointment from now on, I would say.

The blog concerned was run by the GOP side of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee -- which makes the squawk from Media Matters all the more absurd. How did putting the info on a blog differ from putting out a press release? I suppose the difference is that the media have the chance to ignore a press release. An important difference to be sure.

"One final (depressing) note: How effective is Inhofe's media outreach compared to that of the entire community of climate scientists? Well, according to technorati (PDF), as of today, Dec. 21, the IPCC Synthesis report has had 278 blog reactions since its release November 17, whereas Inhofe's "report," issued just yesterday (Thursday), has already had over 300 blog reactions."

Grist was also sad that the NYT ran the "consensus-shattering" news -- a sort of "betrayed by our own" feeling, apparently.

The only substantial point in the Grist article was what we have come to expect of the Green/Left -- attempts to discredit the personalities concerned. They said that some of the scientists were not "prominent" enough -- even though some of them were very prominent indeed.

That the Grist post was a "watermelon" (Green on the outside, red on the inside) effort was shown by its footnote: This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund

"A few weeks ago, a local Muslim leader wrote to decry a recent local talk by Brigitte Gabriel as "hate speech" ("Speaker preaches anti-Muslim hate," Nov. 17 Reader Views). It is both sad and ironic that this leader, Maher Musleh, gave a talk on Sunday night at the Global Learning Center, titled "The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict," filled with the same kinds of inaccuracies and obloquies that he censures in others.

The overview of Jewish history, to which he devoted most of his talk, was replete with errors, from the farcical (that the Talmud was written during the Babylonian Exile) to the egregious (that Muslim countries have never discriminated against Jews).

Worse, the clear aim was to demonize not just Israelis but Jews in general. For example, the story of Joshua's conquest of Canaan was presented as the invention, by Jews, of "terrorism." This is the kind of statement that he would never accept were it aimed at the Muslim community.

Musleh is involved with interfaith activities, so I had hoped that his talk would be more enlightening than partisan. I was disappointed. Musleh seems unable to recognize hate speech when he is the one delivering it.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

I am inclined to see the ACLU as the good guys in this one -- though if the message had been ANTI-homosexual they would have been nowhere to be seen:

"A Virginia high school student said she was asked by a teacher to cover up a lesbian-themed shirt or face suspension.

Bethany Laccone, 17, said she was asked to cloak a logo of two interlocked female symbols while attending a class this month at I.C. Norcom High School in Portsmouth. She's a full-time senior at nearby Woodrow Wilson High School, where she has not faced a similar ultimatum.

In a letter sent Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia asked Norcom administrators to remove any mention of the incident from Laccone's records and agree not to similarly censor other students.

The school's dress code prohibits "bawdy, salacious or sexually suggestive messages." ACLU leaders want administrators to clarify that students can express political views.

"Three teenagers have sued school officials over lengthy suspensions they received for setting up a Facebook page that identifies a teacher as a pedophile. The entry on the social networking site included the face and last name of the teacher and referred to him as a member of the North American Man/Boy Love Association, which supports sex between men and boys.

"They're not saying it's true, they're saying it's just parody," the students' attorney, Marc Mezibov, said Friday. The boys were suspended from Taylor High School for the maximum 90 days for creating the entry in November. They've served 10 days and were told the rest of the punishment would begin Jan. 2, when classes resume after the holiday break.

U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott ordered school officials to let them return pending a hearing on the lawsuit Jan. 10. "Each of the boys has written an apology to the teacher and questioned whether they exercised their best judgment," their attorney, Marc Mezibov, said Friday.

The students and their parents filed the federal lawsuit Dec. 14 after the Three Rivers School District board voted to uphold the punishment. They argue that the Facebook entry should be considered protected speech because it was parody. The plaintiffs also allege the district overstepped its bounds because the Web page was created away from school with access limited to seven people, Mezibov said.....

There have similar cases across Ohio and the country, said Scott Greenwood, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney. Courts have ruled that students can't be punished by schools for such off-campus acts and that such suspensions violate free speech, he said.

The "parody" claim seems far-fetched but it sounds like a private communication to me -- so would seem to be covered by privacy protection. If all negative private communications had to withstand legal assault we would be in a huge mess.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

A Canadian official touring India condemns some remarks from an informed person without showing the slightest interest in whether the remarks are true or not:

"Skip Bassford, president of University College of Fraser Valley, was part of a Canadian delegation looking for ways to increase international student enrolment.

While there, he says he met a Canadian immigration officer who claimed that India's Punjab region has a high number of criminals, serious problems with human trafficking and that residents from the area file a lot of bogus applications to come to Canada.

"I don't know if I can go so far as to say [the comments] were racist. They were certainly inappropriate and probably a bit, in the context, insensitive," said Bassford.

"The Beloit (Wis.) Daily News will bring back "Non Sequitur" next week after suspending it following a Nov. 24 episode showing a KKK-robe-clad chicken who only lays egg whites.

Some Daily News readers criticized Wiley Miller's Nov. 24 strip. But many other readers (as well as cartoonists and "Non Sequitur" syndicator Universal Press Syndicate) noted that the strip was obviously ridiculing racism, not endorsing the racist KKK in any way.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Employers should be entitled to hire and fire as they like but this was a bit thin-skinned:

"A judge has sided with a man who was fired for posting a "Dilbert" comic strip that made fun of managers on an office bulletin board.

David Steward was fired from the Catfish Bend Casino because management found the cartoon "very offensive," human resources director Steve Morley testified at a recent unemployment benefits hearing. The casino had challenged his claim for unemployment benefits.

"Basically, he was accusing the decision-makers of being drunken lemurs," Morley testified. "We consider that misconduct when you insult your employer."

I know that American Jews tend heavily Left these days but this attempt to "get" a conservative is quite amazingly ridiculous:

"Rick Santorum recorded these words in his third outing as The Philadelphia Inquirer's highly touted new columnist in a piece headlined "Put aside politics to confront Iran." It was word play on the very comment that Rodney King made 15 years ago, and Santorum applied it to another African-American (one who happens to have a reasonable chance of becoming the Democratic candidate for president)....

The 1992 Los Angeles riots were triggered by the acquittal of police officers in the beating of Rodney King. King was beaten after a car chase. This clip shows the King statement: Why can't we all get along? It also shows the arrival of National Guard. The late deployment of the Guard was criticized at the time.

It is a fair assessment to maintain that Santorum mocked the words of a man whose beating symbolized the worst of a racially polarized period. Worse, it validates the belief of many citizens that Santorum's political agenda was to suppress poor Americans, many of whom belong to racial minorities...

Did you get that? It took me a while. He is claiming that "Put aside politics to confront Iran" is a quotation of "Why can't we all get along?"

Such a comparison is more reminiscent of schizophrenic thought disorder than anything else. It's amazing enough that anyone wrote such an incredible comparison but what about the editor who decided that it was good enough to publish?

G-d forbid that any conservative would ever claim that he had a dream about anything!

Update:

The sheer desperation to condemn in the above is all too typical of Leftist thinking. It reminds me of the way Leftists often describe Israel as an "Apartheid" State. Yet it is the Arab countries that are the Apartheid States: Practicing severe discrimination against Christians. In Saudi Arabia, you can't go to church or even read a Bible. There is nothing like that in Israel but it is Israel that gets accused of Apartheid! Insanity. Leftists have severe problems with reality.

Update 2

A couple of commenters have pointed out that Santorum in his original speech DID directly quote Rodney King. So the article excerpted above was obscurely written rather than deranged.

But the claim that asking people to get along is a sign of racism surely IS deranged. Surely blacks do not have a monopoly on that wish!

Christians worldwide have of course gone on a rampage, trashed all the firm's stores and called for the beheading of all staff of the advertising agency. And the political Left have defended them for doing so -- saying that their feelings had been hurt and it was all due to poverty anyway.

"I am both perplexed and angered by the storm of controversy over the sweet Christmas pop song, Fairytale of New York by the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl. The furore is not about the use of the word "faggot" in the lyrics, but the fact that BBC Radio 1 decided to bleep out the f-word. Critics decried it as censorship and an attack on free speech.

A BBC online poll asked the public whether the word "faggot" should be deleted. Over 95% said no. They believe that singing the word faggot is acceptable. Faced with this deluge of criticism, Radio 1 caved in and rescinded its bleep-out. This looks like capitulation to mass pressure, rather than a rational, consistent policy decision....

I don't favour heavy-handed bans. I draw the line at words that incite violence and murder, not at language that is merely prejudiced.

So why is he bothered about the song? How can it both contain "words that incite violence and murder" and also be a "sweet Christmas pop song"? He accuses others of double standards but he appears to have double thinking!

"Facebook strikes again. Comments posted on the popular social networking site deemed racist and extremely inappropriate about Jiai Cho, a vice-principal at Chilliwack secondary school, have led to one student being removed from the school, and several others reprimanded.

However, a rumour that made its way to the Chilliwack Times office regarding as many as 200 students being expelled from CSS over the latest Facebook incident was completely false, according to principal Brett Lawrason.

"What happened is there was a Facebook page set up that was very inappropriate," Lawrason told the Times yesterday. "It was racial and sexual and . . . I was a miner for five years and there were things on there I would never say. It was just totally inappropriate."

The student who set up the Facebook group "I hate Mrs. Cho" was not expelled from the school, but was referred to the school district, according to Lawrason, and he is now attending Sardis secondary. Many other students who wrote some of the comments on the site have been spoken to and have met with "basic discipline."

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Le Pen on trial for remarks about WWII

In France you can be head of a major political party that millions vote for but still not be free to say what you think:

"JEAN-MARIE Le Pen, the leader of the French far-Right National Front, went on trial at the weekend accused of condoning the Nazi occupation of his country. He was prosecuted for allegedly conspiring to justify war crimes in an interview with a magazine. The offence carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison and a E45,000 ($75,300) fine....

The 79-year-old provoked outrage when he told Rivarol, a weekly publication, in 2005: "In France at least, the German occupation was not particularly inhumane, even if there were a number of excesses - inevitable in a country of 550,000sq km. "If the Germans had carried out mass executions across the country, as the received wisdom would have it, then there wouldn't have been any need for concentration camps for political deportees."

Rivarol editor Marie-Luce Wacquez, who is also on trial, said: "If you exclude the deportations, the occupation was pretty moderate compared with what happened in the Netherlands and Belgium."

Le Pen's comments were too close to the truth. The French and the Germans DID generally get on fairly well during the occupation. Widespread French antisemitism was one factor in that. And any reader of Trotsky will be aware that 19th century French "Bonapartism" was a precursor of Fascism.

There is an article here noting how Leftist TV host Olbermann quite proudly describes his attempts to get conservative talker Michael Savage kicked off MSNBC. Olberman shows absolutely no shame at attempting to stifle debate and censor an opposing voice. Yet you just have to disagree with a Leftist to get shrieks of "censorship"!

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

"Christmas Tree" Incorrect again

Officials in town of Queen Creek, Arizona, remove the name of `Christmas' from community tree, rename it `holiday tree':

"A reference to the name "Christmas tree" has been axed by misled officials in an Arizona town. ADF attorneys sent an informational letter to the town of Queen Creek stating that the use of the word "Christmas" does not violate the Constitution.

"The American people, common sense, and the Constitution are clearly winning the war on Christmas waged by the Left. Unfortunately, the misguided belief that we must sanitize Christmas to keep from offending a small segment of the population still exists," said ADF Senior Counsel Gary McCaleb.

Queen Creek officials recently decided to rename their community's Christmas tree, which was donated by a local family, a "holiday tree." The tree, which stands outside city hall, is also used as part of a tree-lighting ceremony. Citizens unhappy with the name change have sent at least 60 e-mails to town officials.

"A local authority which wants to erect road signs featuring female characters in the interests of gender equality has had its initiative vetoed by national authorities.

Hassleholm Municipality designed a new sign to mark pedestrian crossings on roads in the town. Instead of the traditional male figure - known in Sweden as Herr Garman, which translates as both 'Mr walk man' and 'This is where you walk' - council roads chief Anders Servin designed a 'Fru Garman'....

But the project has now been vetoed by the Swedish National Roads Administration (Vagverket). It points to laws that state that a new road sign may not erected if it could be confused with an existing design.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Sharpie Sharpton Plays the Race Card

He has got away with so much that he seems to think he can get away with anything:

"Less than a month after the Rev. Al Sharpton led a Washington march to demand federal action in the Jena Six case, several of his associates and employees found federal agents at their doors with subpoenas for records related to his finances, he said.

To him, the timing was no coincidence. With a grand jury gearing up to consider possible tax fraud charges against him, Sharpton is accusing federal authorities of harassing him in retaliation for his fiery brand of racial activism.

"Every major civil rights leader I can think of, from Martin Luther King to Adam Clayton Powell, has had to face this kind of harassment," Sharpton said at a news conference Thursday at the Harlem headquarters of his National Action Network. "I am certainly not in their league, but I certainly expect that will become my lot." ....

This story has been bubbling away on the net for some time but I thought it deserved a comment. We read:

"It seemed like a nice frothy summer treat for some hardworking gals at a hard-driving law firm. In June, instead of hosting another earnest discussion about client cultivation and leadership, the women lawyers group at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton invited an editorial staffer from Glamour magazine. The topic: the dos and don'ts of corporate fashion.

First slide up: an African American woman sporting an Afro. A real no-no, announced the Glamour editor to the 40 or so lawyers in the room. As for dreadlocks: How truly dreadful! The style maven said it was "shocking" that some people still thought it "appropriate" to wear those hairstyles at the office. "No offense," she sniffed, but those "political" hairstyles really had to go.

By the time the lights flicked back on, some Cleary lawyers-particularly the ten or so African American women in attendance-were in a state of disbelief. "It was like she was saying you shouldn't go out with your natural hair, and if you do, you're making a political statement," says one African American associate. "It showed a general cluelessness about black women and their hair."

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Leftist Journalist Wants Journalists to Censor Blogs

Unfettered 'citizen journalism' too risky, we read:

"Supporters of "citizen journalism" argue it provides independent, accurate, reliable information that the traditional media don't provide. While it has its place, the reality is it really isn't journalism at all, and it opens up information flow to the strong probability of fraud and abuse. The news industry should find some way to monitor and regulate this new trend.

The premise of citizen journalism is that regular people can now collect information and pictures with video cameras and cellphones, and distribute words and images over the Internet. Advocates argue that the acts of collecting and distributing makes these people "journalists." This is like saying someone who carries a scalpel is a "citizen surgeon" or someone who can read a law book is a "citizen lawyer."

Tools are merely that. Education, skill and standards are really what make people into trusted professionals. Information without journalistic standards is called gossip. But unlike those other professions, journalism - at least in the United States - has never adopted uniform self-regulating standards. There are commonly accepted ethical principals..."

"Protests from female soldiers have led to the Swedish military removing the penis of a heraldic lion depicted on the Nordic Battlegroup's coat of arms. The armed forces agreed to emasculate the lion after a group of women from the rapid reaction force lodged a complaint to the European Court of Justice, Goteborgs-Posten reports.

But although the army was eventually happy to make the changes in the interests of gender equality, the artist who designed the insignia was less than pleased. "A heraldic lion is a powerful and stately figure with its genitalia intact and I cannot approve an edited image," Vladimir A Sagerlund from the National Archives told Goteborgs-Posten.

Sagerlund blasted the army for making changes to the coat of arms without his permission. "The army lacks knowledge about heraldry. Once upon a time coats of arms containing lions without genitalia were given to those who betrayed the Crown," said Sagerlund.

But the castrated lion has already won the day and is now worn on the arms of all soldiers in the battle group's Swedish battalions.

The comments on this blog offer a valuable supplement to my posts and I for one am glad of them. Every now and again however some sad soul pops up who does not seem to realize that he/she is on private property here. They do not seem to realize that this blog exists solely because of the work that I put into it and that its facilities exist because I set them up. So they post abusive comments here.

If you were a guest in someone's home and insulted the host and pissed on his carpet, you would promptly get the boot. And the same principle applies here. Hostile commenters will be IP banned and their comments deleted. But disagreeing comments made in a polite manner -- along the lines: "You appear not to have considered .... " -- are always welcome.

As it happens there is a blog that specifically hosts those who do not like it here. I encourage malcontents to transfer their attentions to Annie's place.

I hasten to add that there is no animus between Annie herself and myself. We correspond rarely but when we do it is always cordial on both sides.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Romantic Novels are "Hate Speech"?

A Leftist nut writes about the Mills & Boon series of novels that are much read by women young and old:

"My loathing of M&B novels has nothing to do with snobbery. I could not care less if the books are trashy, formulaic or pulp fiction - Martina Cole novels, which I love, are also formulaic. But I do care about the type of propaganda perpetuated by M&B. I would go so far as to say it is misogynistic hate speech."

"The noose, that symbol of American racism associated with the Jim Crow South, is making a comeback. Following the notorious Jena, La., incident, a rash of noose-related hate crimes has surfaced around the country, at times in the unlikeliest of places.

These cases are not aberrations, but part of an endemic problem. On Oct. 9, 2007, in New York City, a noose was found hanging from the office door of a black professor at Columbia University Teachers College. On Oct. 10, an NYPD officer found a noose hanging over his locker. On Oct. 11, a noose was found hanging from a light pole in front of a post office near Ground Zero. On Oct. 22, a noose was sent to a high school principal, a black woman, in Brooklyn."

This pathetic Leftist ignores the fact that in every case where a noose-scare perpetrator was traced, it turned out to be a sensation-seeking black or Leftist -- or there was no noose at all. See previous posts on this blog and also here and here.

There is a HUGE history of "hate crimes" faked by Leftists -- See here -- so unless proven otherwise it is reasonable to believe that ALL the noose incidents were the work of Leftists.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Incorrect calendar

We read:

"Spain's government-run Women's Institute has labelled a 2008 calendar for low-cost airline Ryanair featuring bikini-wearing air hostesses as sexist and said it would be sending letters of complaint to Irish and EU authorities.

The institute, which defends women's rights, said that while the fact that the proceeds from calendar sales would go to charity was positive, the photographs "represent the stewardesses as sexual objects" and "reinforce discriminatory stereotypes."

"Rhetoric from some Sikh extremists prior to the Air India bombing was worse that that of a notorious Alberta teacher convicted of anti-Semitic hate speech, the head of the bombing inquiry said Monday.

Commissioner John Major was commenting as terrorism expert Martin Rudner testified about how more needs to be done to prosecute the glorification of terrorism in Canada. Rudner, of Carleton University, said no one in Canada has been prosecuted under hate laws for inciting or promoting terrorism.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

What a stupid and boring woman

We read:

"Sister Kathy Avery won't put up with swearing on the playground at her school, and she's not above repeating the offending language to make sure everyone understands which words she won't tolerate. The principal of St. Clare of Montefalco Catholic School had students stay after a Mass last month and informed the fifth- through eighth-graders that she has a zero-tolerance policy for cursing.

Just in case anyone wasn't sure what she was talking about, Avery read off a list of the very words and phrases that she was banning. "It got a little quiet in church" during her talk, she told the Detroit Free Press.....

Cuss words aren't the only things that set Avery off. She's also banned the words "stupid" and "boring."

"A Turkish lawyer is taking legal action against Inter Milan, the Italian football team, for wearing a strip with "Crusader-style" red crosses that he alleges is "offensive to Muslim sensibilities".

Baris Kaska, a lawyer in Izmir who specialises in European law, said that he had lodged a complaint in a local court against Inter Milan, which last month played the Istanbul team Fenerbahce in a Champions League match at the San Siro stadium in Milan. The Inter players wore a new strip - a white shirt with a giant red cross on it - marking the club's centenary.

Mr Kaska said he was not only seeking damages but was also appealing to Uefa to annul the match, which Inter won 3-0. "That cross only brings one thing to mind - the symbol of the Templar Knights," he said

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

"Free speech in Alberta has suffered a serious, and unexpected reversal, in the guilty judgment handed down by an Alberta Human Rights Panel on Stephen Boissoin.

His critique of homosexuality in letters published by the Red Deer Advocate had been the subject of a human rights complaint and was declared "hate speech" by panelist, Lori G. Andreachuk.

It is a bad situation. Fortunately, there appear to be avenues of appeal to restore free-speech sanity to Alberta.....

Boissoin, a youth pastor, was outraged when the Alberta government agreed to an Alberta Human Rights Commission invitation to fund gay-themed textbooks in schools. These were to teach homosexuality was "normal, necessary, acceptable and productive."

"The deadly shooting sprees at a megachurch and a missionary training school were believed to have been carried out by the same person - a 24-year-old suburban Denver man who "hated Christians", a law enforcement official says.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly about the investigation, identified the gunman as Matthew Murray, the son of a neurologist who is a prominent researcher on multiple sclerosis.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Army Speech Police

We read:

"There's a big fuss at the moment over a list of "no-no words" circulated by an office of the Army. Compiled by someone with expertise in equal opportunity matters, the list purports to be 76 examples of words that simply should not be used in the workplace, as they are hurtful.

"Colonial," for instance, is on the list. Ditto "Canuck." Many are chortling at the evident politically-correct overreach. The list evidently discourages workplace talk about Vancouver's professional hockey team. Others are predictably angry.

"Red-handed," for example, is on the list. But, this term does not refer to Native Americans but instead dates to the 15th century. Its first recorded usage of "red-handed" is in Scott's Ivanhoe. The "red" refers to blood, not skin color.

"Blacklisted," ironically, is also on the blacklist. Again, to those at home keeping score, this word has nothing to do with race. Ask the blacklisted "Hollywood Ten," who would probably tell you that, while the idea of a blacklist may be offensive, the restriction against mentioning it is even more so.

But, my favorite one is this: "Sounds greek to me (sic)." Anyone who, like me, spent time in school trying to learn classical Greek will attest that the first hurdle one encounters is learning all those funny letters. Anyone not familiar with the Greek alphabet, when presented with Greek words will .... well, they will find it all Greek to them.

"A New York grocer made a holiday faux pas when it advertised hams as "Delicious for Chanukah," reports FOX News. For the uninformed, ham is not part of the Jewish kosher diet and Hanukkah is the eight-day Jewish holiday that began Tuesday evening. Pictures of the mistake by the Balducci's store in Greenwich Village were posted on a blog over the weekend.

Jennifer Barton, director of marketing, told The Associated Press Thursday that the signs were changed as soon as the error was noted. Barton released a statement apologizing for the mistake on the company web site and said Balducci's would review its employee training.

"Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed a law that protects employees in the state's executive branch from discrimination and harassment based on "gender identity or expression," reports CCH Business and Corporate Compliance. The directive adds "gender identity or expression" to a list of other prohibited forms of discrimination and harassment, including religion, race, color, national origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, height, weight, marital status, partisan considerations, disability and genetic information.

It looks like fatties and shorties are protected from comments but surely people who have colds or other illnesses should be protected from "healthism" comments in their hearing and unattractive people should surely be protected from "lookism" comments in their hearing and lazy people should surely be protected from "workism" comments in their hearing etc. We wouldn't want to "harass" anybody, would we?

And how come comments about body odor are still permitted? Surely that should be stamped out! And childless people could very easily be upset or offended by mention of children in their presence so keep those family photos at home! And owners of Detroit products could very easily be offended by people who drive Toyotas so no discussion of cars should be allowed. And don't even THINK of talking about beer! Think how many teetotallers you might offend!

Monday, December 10, 2007

Pollution Regulations Trump the First Amendment?

Washington State:

"The state is unlikely to grant a permit to a man who wants to burn a Mexican flag on the steps of the state Capitol, because of air pollution concerns. Nick Bradford, of Tacoma, said he wants to burn the flag when the legislative session opens in January, to encourage the state to do more to crack down on illegal immigrants, including allowing local police to arrest people who enter the country illegally. ...

The Department of General Administration, which operates the building, checked with the Olympia Fire Department, which said any burning would have to be cleared by the Olympic Region Clean Air Agency, department spokesman Steve Valandra told The Olympian newspaper.

"Flag burning is a form of protected free speech, so if he wanted to get a permit to do this, GA would grant it to him, as long as he abided by whatever other preconditions existed," Valandra said. But there's little chance the clean air agency would allow a permit, said Richard Stedman, executive director of the agency. "Burning a flag produces a lot of toxic materials...

"NBC reversed course Saturday and decided to air a conservative group's television ad thanking U.S. troops. The ad, by the group Freedom's Watch, asks viewers to remember the troops during the holiday season. NBC had refused to air the ad because it guides viewers to the Freedom's Watch Web site, which NBC said was too political.

"The NBC lawyer who refused to allow a non-profit group to air an advertisement thanking American troops for their service has donated at least $45,000 to a host of Congressional Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, New York Senator Hillary Clinton and the campaign committees of House and Senate Democrats

Sunday, December 09, 2007

NBC Refuses to Run Support-the-Troops Ads During Holidays

We read:

"A conservative organization known as Freedom's Watch has had its advertisements rejected by NBC. What was the heinous content of these ads? A show of support and thanks to America's troops serving around the world during the holidays. I kid you not.

There's a good response to this: Don't watch NBC. Who needs 'em? And if you DO watch something these characters put on, NEVER buy anything advertised there.

It would be rather fun if Fox ended up with the conservative half of the American audience and the other groups had to fight one-another for the Leftist half. They're looking dumb enough to end up that way.

You can see the blocked video here. You will be amazed at what NBC calls "controversial"

The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 bites the dust:

"Religious broadcasters were celebrating Friday over the removal of a hate-crimes provision from the National Defense Authorization Act. The American Civil Liberties Union supported the provision, saying that it protected free-speech rights while punishing only the hateful conduct.

The bill punished the conduct of targeting someone for violence because of race, color, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. It allowed bigoted speech or association with hate groups as evidence of a crime, but only if it was directly related to the crime.

But religious broadcasters were not assuaged. "We know the bill's sponsors did not believe it had any First Amendment implications," National Religious Broadcasters senior vice president and general counsel Craig Parshall said, "but we felt it did. It was a troublesome scenario," he added, calling its removal "a big victory." ...

Religious broadcasters are concerned that such a bill might suppress speech from the pulpit, like preaching on morals and values that might not square with some powerful politicians, say opposing homosexuality or branding Islam a false religion.

Saturday, December 08, 2007

Wikipedia Promotes Nazism??

More Leftist attention-seeking behavior:

"A left-wing German politician has filed charges against online encyclopaedia Wikipedia for promoting the use of banned Nazi symbols in Germany. Katina Schubert, a deputy leader of the Left party, said she had filed the charge with Berlin police on the grounds that Wikipedia's German language site contained too much Nazi symbolism, particularly an article on the Hitler Youth movement. "The extent and frequency of the symbols on it goes beyond what is needed for documentation and political education, in my view," she told Reuters. "This isn't about restricting freedom of opinion, it's about examining what the limits are."

"A McDonald's advertisement showing a carload of male teenagers ordering a drive-through meal is off the air after an investigation by an industry watchdog. The advertisement, which shows a P-plater [provisionally-licensed driver] who drives his friends to the fast food restaurant after getting his licence, will not be screened again following claims it promoted unsafe driving.

After airing between November 4 and 12 it was investigated by the Advertising Standards Bureau. "I think it was one of the most complained about for the month,"Advertising Standards Bureau chief executive officer Fiona Jolly said.

"The complaints made about this ad were that it depicted young boys driving in a manner that wasn't safe. The board noted that a carload of kids in the middle of the day isn't illegal but the board felt that the depiction of the kids really was contrary to all the public safety messages that are out there at the moment to young men on safe driving and safe behaviour in cars. They really felt that this was an ad that did breach the code."

Friday, December 07, 2007

"Displays of nooses, swastikas, burning crosses or other "hate symbols" deliberately meant to intimidate others will become crimes under a proposal headed for the City Council Thursday.

Fielkow said the act is borne out of concern that expressions of racial or ethnic hate -- for instance, in Jena, La., and in the display of nooses in a Jefferson Parish government office -- are too common. He said New Orleans has to go on record in favor of tolerance as it rebuilds after Hurricane Katrina.

The proposed ordinance would make displays of the three specific symbols, plus the display of "any symbol" meant to intimidate punishable by a fine of $500 and six months in jail.

"Poofter" is the Australian equivalent of the American "faggot". It is quite a common insult to call someone a poofter:

"The publisher of a small north Queensland newspaper and an elderly correspondent who wrote a letter headlined "Poofters Beware" yesterday made legal history. Mission Beach Advertiser publisher Michael Wilks and 73-year-old Ross Woodley have became the first people to be prosecuted by Queensland's Anti-Discrimination Tribunal on the basis of a complaint brought by an organisation, rather than an individual.

The tribunal found Wilks, 63, and Woodley guilty of vilification and ordered them to acknowledge homosexuals were important to north Queensland's tourism economy and should be welcomed to the area.

The pair has also been stuck with substantial legal fees and will be forced to publish apologies after the November 2003 edition of the paper carried Mr Woodley's letter, in which he falsely claimed men had been engaging in sexual acts at nearby Garners Beach and vigilantes were planning violence against them.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

"Two days after naming its mascot "PorkChop," the Philadelphia Phillies' new Triple-A affiliate abruptly dropped the moniker after receiving complaints from Hispanics that it was offensive.

General Manager Kurt Landes said he heard from several Hispanics who said PorkChop was derogatory. "We were really unaware of any negative connotations with the word 'pork chop,"' he said. "If it offended a few, it's a few too many."

Guillermo Lopez, vice president of the Latino Leadership Alliance, said he was called "pork chop" when he worked at Bethlehem Steel decades ago. "If my parents were alive, they'd be having fits," said Lopez, among those who complained to the team. "It meant much more to them than it does to Puerto Ricans now in the Lehigh Valley."

In Australian slang, a "pork chop" is someone who panics or gets upset too easily. If American slang is the same (and I know that there are regional variations in American slang) the guy complaining was being criticized for his personal characteristics rather than his ethnic origins.

Other than that "Porks" is a South African abbreviation for the Portuguese. But it is just an abbreviation.

"A 70-year-old man working as Santa Claus says he was sacked from a Cairns department store for saying "ho, ho, ho" and singing Christmas carols.

In a case of political correctness seemingly gone mad, retired entertainer John Oakes says he was fired from his job at Myer for his rendition of Santa's famous laugh. His employer, Westaff, last month sparked national outrage when it ordered its Santas to say "ha, ha, ha" instead of "ho, ho, ho" because it could be derogatory to women.

They're trying to kill the spirit of Christmas," Mr Oakes told The Cairns Post yesterday, just days into his fourth year as Myer's Santa. "But after my shift on Monday, I got a call from my manager telling me my services were no longer required. "I hadn't done anything wrong so I asked her why, and she said, `You said ho, ho, ho and that's not appropriate'.

A Myer spokesman said Mr Oakes was sacked for breaches of company rules, but he declined to outline details of the breaches. The spokesman denied he was sacked for saying "ho, ho, ho". Westaff spokesman Bert Jansz said Mr Oakes was fired for having the wrong attitude.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

More Leftist Doublethink

Forbidding one side to speak "fosters open and honest discussion"??

"When Marine Major Christian Devine asked Syracuse University's Maxwell School to host a presentation by his DoD outreach program, "Why We Serve," the chair, Mark Rupert , decided to tell him to go pound sand. He felt that allowing serving members of the military to speak would not meet the department's goal to ""foster open and honest discussion."

"As readers of a conservative blog debated the subject of teacher salaries, a writer using the pseudonym "Observer" weighed in. The West Bend teachers' salaries made him sick, the person wrote, adding that the 1999 Columbine High School killers had the right idea. "They knew how to deal with the overpaid teacher union thugs. One shot at a time! Too bad the liberls (sic) rip them; they were heros (sic) and should be remembered that way," the writer said.

But police say the writer was a teacher himself - and the past president of a teachers union - apparently posing as a teacher-hater. James Buss was arrested Thursday by West Bend police, and the 46-year-old Cudahy man could face criminal charges. He has been suspended from his job as a teacher at Oak Creek High School....

Owen Robinson, a West Bend resident and administrator of bootsandsabers.com - a collection of news and conservative commentary where the message was posted at 6:50 p.m. Nov. 16 - said Friday that it seemed that "Observer" was "posing as a conservative, right-wing whack job to discredit" the Web site's discussion of teachers' salaries.

Saletan's recent article in Slate summarizing the evidence for the reality and heritability of IQ was something of a dambusting event in the mainstream media. The general public previously had had few opportunities to hear what the evidence was. In the name of political correctness, IQ is one of the most lied-about phenomena of the age. The last thing anyone hears is the evidence.

Saletan did of course come under heavy attack for his "immoral" article and I have commented myself on some of that criticism (e.g. here) but for a really comprehensive reply to the critics, see an article by Linda Gottfredson. Although Gottfredson and I are both psychometricians, she specializes in ability measurement while I do not. So you get a very throrough and detailed -- but still readable -- account of the matter from her.

Curious how Leftists say "There is no such thing as right and wrong" but suddenly decide that an argument or a statement is "immoral" when the facts of the matter don't suit them!

I simply laugh when Leftists talk about something as being immoral. Since they believe that all such statements are empty truth-claims, it is obvious hypocrisy when they make such statements. But the reason why they make such statements is to persuade non-Leftists. Saying things that they do not themselves believe is all in a day's work for Leftists. So it is interesting that Linda Gottfredson goes on to point out ways in which it is immoral to DENY the reality of differences in IQ.

I set out here reasons why most statements of right and wrong are not empty truth claims -- though some are, of course.

"A firefighter who reportedly found a rope and a threatening note with a drawing of a noose in a Baltimore station house last month admitted to placing the items there himself, it was reported. The Baltimore Sun reported Sunday that Donald Maynard, a firefighter and paramedic in-training, who is African American, confessed to police.

In a written statement Fire Chief William J. Goodwin Jr. said Maynard wanted to create a "perception that members within our department were acting in a discriminatory and unprofessional manner," the Sun reported. The noose incident sparked outrage two weeks ago and lauched a federal hate crime probe.

Monday, December 03, 2007

Canadian Muslims Trying to Muzzle Steyn

We read:

"The Canadian Islamic Congress-Canada's largest non-profit Islamic body-has launched two human rights complaints against Maclean's and its editor-in-chief, Kenneth Whyte. The complaints' subject is "The Future Belongs to Islam," an excerpt from Mark Steyn's book "America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It," which appeared in the magazine's Oct. 23, 2006, issue.

Complaints were submitted to Human Rights Commissions in B.C. and Ontario on the grounds that "the article subjects Canadian Muslims to hatred and contempt," according to a CIC press release. In the release, the CIC labels Steyn's article as "flagrantly Islamophobic."

Our Leftist oppressors are determined to make kid's education boring. "Keep 'em ignorant" is their aim. Too much education might reveal things to kids that Leftists do not want them to know -- such as the historic failure of socialism wherever it has been tried:

"SESAME Street is now brought to you by the letter P and the letter C - for political correctness, that is. The fun police have slapped an "adults only" warning on a new DVD of classic episodes, which featured a world in which children played in the street, a monster gorged on cookies and a bad-tempered puppet lived in a bin.

The episodes, made between 1969 and 1974, have been released in the US with the caution: "These early Sesame Street episodes are intended for grown-ups and may not suit the needs of today's preschool child." Topping the list of furry villains is the Cookie Monster, whose penchant for devouring cookies and the odd plate or two is no longer deemed appropriate behaviour for modern children.

His alter ego, Alistair Cookie, host of MonsterPiece Theatre, "modelled the wrong behaviour" by smoking a pipe and eating it, according to Sesame Street producer Carol-Lynn Parente. Back then, Big Bird's bumbling friend Mr Snuffleupagus was still imaginary, which might encourage "delusion behaviour". And trash-loving Oscar the Grouch has been targetted for his blatant bad manners and questionable hygiene.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Jail for English insult

We read:

"Michael Forsythe, 54, from Powys, was convicted of racially aggravated harassment after calling a Welsh woman English. He swore at and insulted Gavin and Lorna Steele at the tattoo parlour they own, after hitting their parked vehicle.

He was sentenced to ten weeks in jail, suspended for 12 months, with a supervision requirement at Welshpool Magistrates' Court. He must pay 200 pounds costs.

"A British Asian sent to work in an Indian call centre only to be dismissed because his accent "wasn't English enough" has won a racial discrimination case against his employer. Chetankumar Meshram, 27, a call centre trainer from Northampton who has spoken English since the age of 2, was awarded 5,000 pounds compensation after being sent back to England just three weeks into a two-month post at the telecoms firm Talk Talk Direct's Delhi office.

Mr Meshram, who was born in India but moved to Britain in 2005, said: "I was called into a meeting with my boss, who told me I was to be replaced with a better English speaker.

I am certainly not anti-Indian. I have four Indians living in my house. But I do find foreign accents hard to understand on the phone so I think it was perfectly reasonable for a company in the business of communication to require the accent that was easiest to understand for most of its customers.

I remember a sign I once saw over a shop in Bombay: "Indian English only spoken here". Was the shop owner a racist? Not at all. Indian English can be almost a different language from the King's English and the guy was simply admitting that he could understand one and not the other.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Unspoken Word Incorrect

We read:

"A widely performed school play has been canceled by Lakota officials after a recent meeting with a local NAACP official. The internationally acclaimed play - Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians" - was to be performed by students at Lakota East High School this weekend. But Gary Hines, president of the local NAACP branch, recently complained to Lakota officials that the play, based on Christie's 1939 mystery novel, was inappropriate for a school production.

Hines said the book's original title and cover illustration used for its initial publishing that year in England was a racial slur toward blacks and included a cover illustration of a black person and a hangman's noose. "The original title was 'Ten Little (N - - - - - -),' and it is important to say that because that was the actual title," Hines said Monday.

The title of the international bestseller was widely changed after 1939, and school theater productions in America have performed the murder mystery play as either "Ten Little Indians" or "And Then There Were None" for decades since.

The utterance of "racist" viewpoints is generally protected under American law but is a crime under Canadian law. But it gets worse. A recent Canadian court decision holds that is defamation to criticize use of those laws. You are not even allowed to say that enemies of free speech are enemies of free speech. Joe Stalin could not ask for more. The Volokhs have the details.

"The city administration has pulled a diversity training video after a white employee said it unfairly singled out white people as racist and sexist. The eight-minute video, titled "Laughing Matters," depicted a character named Billy making off-color sexist and racist jokes on topics such as Carlos not doing any work while waiting for supplies

Is the American national anthem politically incorrect? From the 4th verse:Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."

Mohammad

The truth can be offensive to some but it must be said

"HATE SPEECH" is free speech: The U.S. Supreme Court stated the general rule regarding protected speech in Texas v. Johnson (109 S.Ct. at 2544), when it held: "The government may not prohibit the verbal or nonverbal expression of an idea merely because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable." Federal courts have consistently followed this. Said Virginia federal district judge Claude Hilton: "The First Amendment does not recognize exceptions for bigotry, racism, and religious intolerance or ideas or matters some may deem trivial, vulgar or profane."

Even some advocacy of violence is protected by the 1st Amendment. In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), the U.S. Supreme Court held unanimously that speech advocating violent illegal actions to bring about social change is protected by the First Amendment "except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."

The double standard: Atheists can put up signs and billboards saying that Christianity is wrong and that is hunky dory. But if a Christian says that homosexuality is wrong, that is attacked as "hate speech"

One for the militant atheists to consider: "...it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg" -- Thomas Jefferson

"I think no subject should be off-limits, and I regard the laws in many Continental countries criminalizing Holocaust denial as philosophically repugnant and practically useless – in that they confirm to Jew-haters that the Jews control everything (otherwise why aren’t we allowed to talk about it?)" -- Mark Steyn

Voltaire's most famous saying was actually a summary of Voltaire's thinking by one of his biographers rather than something Voltaire said himself. Nonetheless it is a wholly admirable sentiment: "I disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it". I am of a similar mind.

The traditional advice about derogatory speech: "Sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never hurt you". Apparently people today are not as emotionally robust as their ancestors were.

Why conservatives should not respond to Leftist abuse: "Never wrestle with a pig, because you'll both just get dirty, and the pig likes it.”

The KKK were members of the DEMOCRATIC party. Google "Klanbake" if you doubt it

A phobia is an irrational fear, so the terms "Islamophobic" and "homophobic" embody a claim that the people so described are mentally ill. There is no evidence for either claim. Both terms are simply abuse masquerading as diagnoses and suggest that the person using them is engaged in propaganda rather than in any form of rational or objective discourse.

Leftists often pretend that any mention of race is "racist" -- unless they mention it, of course. But leaving such irrational propaganda aside, which statements really are racist? Can statements of fact about race be "racist"? Such statements are simply either true or false. The most sweeping possible definition of racism is that a racist statement is a statement that includes a negative value judgment of some race. Absent that, a statement is not racist, for all that Leftists might howl that it is. Facts cannot be racist so nor is the simple statement of them racist. Here is a statement that cannot therefore be racist by itself, though it could be false: "Blacks are on average much less intelligent than whites". If it is false and someone utters it, he could simply be mistaken or misinformed.

Categorization is a basic human survival skill so racism as the Left define it (i.e. any awareness of race) is in fact neither right nor wrong. It is simply human

Whatever your definition of racism, however, a statement that simply mentions race is not thereby racist -- though one would think otherwise from American Presidential election campaigns. Is a statement that mentions dogs, "doggist" or a statement that mentions cats, "cattist"?

If any mention of racial differences is racist then all Leftists are racist too -- as "affirmative action" is an explicit reference to racial differences

Was Abraham Lincoln a racist? "You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffer very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this be admitted, it affords a reason at least why we should be separated. It is better for both, therefore, to be separated." -- Spoken at the White House to a group of black community leaders, August 14th, 1862

Gimlet-eyed Leftist haters sometimes pounce on the word "white" as racist. Will the time come when we have to refer to the White House as the "Full spectrum of light" House?

The spirit of liberty is "the spirit which is not too sure that it is right." and "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it." -- Judge Learned Hand

Mostly, a gaffe is just truth slipping out

Two lines below of a famous hymn that would be incomprehensible to Leftists today ("honor"? "right"? "freedom?" Freedom to agree with them is the only freedom they believe in)

First to fight for right and freedom,
And to keep our honor clean

It is of course the hymn of the USMC -- still today the relentless warriors that they always were.

It seems a pity that the wisdom of the ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus is now little known. Remember, wrote the Stoic thinker, "that foul words or blows in themselves are no outrage, but your judgment that they are so. So when any one makes you angry, know that it is your own thought that has angered you. Wherefore make it your endeavour not to let your impressions carry you away."

"Since therefore the knowledge and survey of vice is in this world so necessary to the constituting of human virtue, and the scanning of error to the confirmation of truth, how can we more safely, and with less danger, scout into the regions of sin and falsity than by reading all manner of tractates, and hearing all manner of reason?" -- English poet John Milton (1608-1674) in Areopagitica

Leftists can try to get you fired from your job over something that you said and that's not an attack on free speech. But if you just criticize something that they say, then that IS an attack on free speech

The intellectual Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) could have been speaking of much that goes on today when he said: "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

I despair of the ADL. Jews have enough problems already and yet in the ADL one has a prominent Jewish organization that does its best to make itself offensive to Christians. Their Leftism is more important to them than the welfare of Jewry -- which is the exact opposite of what they ostensibly stand for! Jewish cleverness seems to vanish when politics are involved. Fortunately, Christians are true to their saviour and have loving hearts. Jewish dissatisfaction with the myopia of the ADL is outlined here. Note that Foxy was too grand to reply to it.

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here